


Death in the Study

by Klara_Blum



Category: Lynes and Mathey Series - Amy Griswold & Melissa Scott
Genre: Case Fic, M/M, locked room mystery with magic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2019-10-15 00:22:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17518676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Klara_Blum/pseuds/Klara_Blum
Summary: A man is found stabbed in his study. The door has been locked from the inside and Ned can find no traces of magic at the door or the window. So how did the murderer get in (and more importantly out again)? Ned is determined to find out and in the process he learns far more about French Romantic art than he ever wanted to know. (Mind you, Ned was content knowing absolutely nothing about French Romanticism).





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I had the idea to this after reading R. Austin Freeman's _The Aluminium Dagger_. I thought about how the story would work with magic and at first meant to write exactly that but when researching a minor detail I got distracted and suddenly had a completely different idea. At the end there was very little left of the original (so little that you can now go and read _The Aluminium Dagger_ without spoiling yourself for this story) but I feel I still owe Freeman at least a mention.

The note from Hatton simply gave an address in Mayfair and the word “Come”. He’d never been very talkative but this was a new record. Ned wondered if was just because Hatton worried about the uproar a murder in this neighbourhood would cause or if there was more behind it. He and Hatton hadn’t exactly been friends before the Dionysus Club case but at least they’d enjoyed working together. Did the inspector still think that? Ned shook of the thought. Worrying about it wouldn’t help. And Hatton’s mood wouldn’t improve if he dallied. Hoping that the case would be worth it he paid for a cab, instead of wasting more time waiting for an omnibus.

In Mayfair the house didn’t stand out. Compared to almost anywhere else in London it was almost a palace. Ned tried to not let himself be intimidated too much by the expressionless stare of the footman who led him upstairs, where Hatton was already waiting.

“Finally one of you is here,” he grumbled, “there must be some hocus-pocus going on with this one and I really hope you can tell us what exactly it was.”

“I might if you fill me in on some details. Like what exactly happened. And to whom.”

Hatton looked at least slightly chastised. “The victim is Titus Hyde.”

The name sounded vaguely familiar to Ned. He combed through his memories. “Hyde…as in Hyde and Lewis?”

“That’s the one. He’s been stabbed. This letter was on his desk. The footman says it might have arrived with the evening mail, but he can’t be certain. Hyde always wanted all the mail to be brought to his desk immediately, and he sorted through it himself.” He handed Ned a sheet.

 

> We remember  
> For thing you did you pay when you not expect it  
> Not belive I forget what you don  
> You pazt is not forgot  
> It com and haunt you forefer  
> We find you and you regret

 

Ned just stared at it. “Yeah.” Hatton took the sheet again, “That’s exactly what I thought as well. Very enlightening, isn’t it?” 

“I would assume Lewis’s son would know English a bit better than that, so this is probably not from him. And you think metaphysics will help you figure out more about this?”

“If it can do that I’m not complaining but there’s something else.”

“What?”

“He was stabbed in a first floor room. The windows were all closed and the door was locked. From the inside.”

“Oh.”

“Could someone have done to the dagger what the reverend did to the silver?”

“Unlikely. A heavy item could simply fall down on its own and kill somebody. Daggers don't just fall down and stab someone. But I’ll take a look.”

The room was fairly small for a house of this size. One bookcase on the wall opposite the door it covered one half of it, the other half was empty, without even a picture. A writing desk stood at the other side of the room and opposite it a window. The body lay on its back, a dagger in his chest.

He knelt down next to the body and took a closer look at the dagger. Something was engraved on the hilt. “B - O - 3…no that’s not English…or the Latin alphabet. Greek? No. Russian perhaps?

Hatton shrugged. “Or Turkish? Perhaps someone at the station can figure that out.” Ned was fairly sure Turkish used the Latin alphabet as well, but he wasn’t going to discuss that now. Instead, he tested the dagger for any residual magic. Nothing. He got up.

“It’s more likely that he did something to that door.” Ned walked over to it and tried “Show me your past”, “Reveal your secrets”, “Tell what was done” and any other combination of the words he could think of. Some of those in a grammar that would have meet his Oxford lecturers cringe. Nothing happened. Eventually he gave up.

“The lock hasn’t been tampered with. And neither has the door.”

Hatton paused for a moment.

“Hasn’t? Or could it just been well-hidden?”

Ned had already considered this question. “If somebody is that good at hiding his magical traces, one dead body would be the least of our worries.”

Hatton’s stare suggested that he would have preferred a simple yes or no as answer. Ned sighed.

“I can never completely exclude the possibility but magic leaves traces. Even if I couldn’t tell you exactly how that spell worked, I should still be able to detect some traces. But this door shows no traces of magic at all and I never heard of anybody who could hide magic so completely.”

“So, this door was locked from the inside by hand. Very likely the hand of the man who lies dead on the floor inside?”

Before Ned could answer, Julian appeared. His dishevelled look suggested that he had still been asleep when he had received Hatton’s summons. The inspector noticed that as well and threw him a judgemental glance but didn’t say anything.

Julian gave no sign that he noticed. He just asked: “So somebody is dead?”

“Titus Hyde.”

“Should that name tell my anything?”

“From Hyde and Lewis,” Ned cut in, before Hatton could say the same in a much more exasperated tone.

“And should that name tell me anything?”

This time Hatton was quicker. “Man, don’t you ever read the papers?”

Julian just shrugged.

“Hyde and Lewis had an extremely successful company. Then, eight years ago, Lewis died of a heart attack. His son of course expected to inherit his father’s share. But then it turned out that Lewis had sold his share to Hyde at a ridiculously low price a day before his death.”

“Now I remember. Lewis son went to court, didn’t he?”

“Yes, but the contract was investigated and it was found that the signature was really by Lewis hand. They ended up trying to argue that Lewis had been forced to sign the contract and then coincidentally died before he could tell anybody about it but the jury didn’t buy it.”

“It would have been very convenient,” Julian agreed, “I think the son argued that his father had a weak heart, and that when they used threats of violence to make him sign the contract, his heart gave up. But Hyde's defence argued that they could hardly count on him dying before going to the police." 

“So you do read the papers,” Hatton exclaimed in mock-surprise.

“I’m just really bad with names inspector Batton.” Julian shot back.

“Could we perhaps come back to the murder?” Ned interrupted the banter, “How was he found?”

“The valet found him like this in the morning after he had realised that his bed hadn’t been slept in. He knew Hyde always spent the evenings in his study and when he found the door locked and got no reaction from inside he forced it open and…well.” He motioned around the room. 

Julian knelt down to have a closer look. When he saw the dagger he made a surprised noise and murmured something incomprehensible.

“What?” asked Hatton who had just wanted to resume his narration.

“The writing on the hilt.”

“Yes. We saw that as well,” Hatton murmured sourly, “We haven’t found anybody who…”

“Revenge. No wait. More something like retribution.” Julian stopped him. “It’s Russian.”

“You speak Russian?” There were more pressing matters at the moment but Julian’s wealth of hidden talents never failed to surprise Ned.

“A bit.”

“So together with the note we can assume that Hyde got on the bad side of some Russians?”

Julian’s eyes shot up. “What note?” Hatton handed it to him.

He stared at the paper for a while. “Well, whoever wrote this probably wasn’t Russian. I doubt he was foreign at all.”

Hatton protested: “But that's not how someone who grew up speaking English would write. Not even one who never learnt to write properly.”

“Yes. But it also aren’t mistakes a Russian would make. I have a Russian…” Julian paused, “Acquaintance. He doesn’t sound at all like this.”

If Ned had to bet he would assume that ‘acquaintance’ meant Julian had slept with him or had shady dealings with him. Most likely both.

Hatton huffed. “That just means your acquaintance hasn’t written this letter, doesn’t it?”

Julian very obviously suppressed a sigh but either the inspector didn’t notice or he didn’t care. “This letter sounds like something out of a penny dreadful. One written by someone who has never met a person who didn’t grow up speaking English. It makes a difference what the person’s mother tongue is. A German who speaks English will make different mistakes than a Frenchman. Or a Russian. This sounds like none of them. We are supposed to believe that the person who wrote this doesn’t know the difference between you and your or how to spell past but knows regret and haunt. At the same time no sentence is completely incomprehensible. If someone speaks a language really badly they can easily mess up a sentence so badly that it’s no longer clear what they meant but here even the longer sentences are still comprehensible, just full of spelling errors and wrong tenses. ”

It made sense but Hatton didn’t look fully convinced, yet. But Julian wasn’t finished. “Tell me inspector, what do you think this letter is referring to?”

“How should I know that? I don’t know anything about Hyde’s past apart from the court case. And the letter isn’t exactly insightful.”

“Exactly! I’ve had some experience with…threatening letters. They rarely spell out what exactly the writer wants revenge for but I’ve never seen one that was that vague. No name, no place or year. Nothing that would give the recipient a clue what the writer is talking about. If I want to make someone afraid, I would want to make sure at least the recipient knows what I’m talking about. With a date, a name or a place. Perhaps a phrase that makes no sense to anyone but him. Anything. But this is just _You will pay for what you did_ over and over again without specifying for what he should pay.”

This explanation seemed to convince Hatton more than the linguistic one. “So you’re saying that dagger and the note are just a red herring?”

Julian shrugged, “Everybody can go and get whatever they want engraved on a dagger. In whatever language they want. Someone still might be double-bluffing but that would mean they had to be sure that the police see the letter as fake.”

“And as you just demonstrated the police is too stupid to do that.”

For a moment Ned worried that Julian would snap at him and say something about how Hatton had asked him to consult on the case but Julian’s tone was surprisingly conciliatory when he said: “I just have a lot of experience with these kinds of letters. People who receive them usually prefer private consulting to the police.”

The inspector sighed, “Well, it would have been too good if we’d had one clue in this whole mess. We still don’t even know how they got in…or more importantly out.”

Julian’s glance went to the window. It was closed. The room was on the second floor and nothing in sight that would have helped anybody climb up. Ned opened it and glanced down. It had rained the previous day but the soil below the window was undisturbed. No footprints, no marks of a ladder. Ned tried the same spells he had tried on the door anyway. Nothing.

“The window wasn’t tampered with, either.”

“That’s impossible,” protested Hatton.

Now Julian went to the study-door and examined it. Hatton glared at him. “Believe it or not Lynes, but we had the thought that the lock had been tampered with by ordinary means ourselves. There’s no sign of that. Not a single scratch.”

“So,” Julian summed up, “a man was stabbed in a locked room and no magic was used to lock the door or the window afterwards.” He looked around the room. “Nobody could have hidden anywhere in here and slipped out once the door was opened.”

“Unless he was invisible. The valet told the footman to call for the police and stayed here.” He looked at Ned again. “Could he…?”

“Invisibility isn’t impossible. But he would have needed to start casting the spell just after the valet discovered the locked door and finish it before it was opened since the spell would only last for a few minutes. And we should have found some leftover materials here, since it’s impossible without.”

Hatton sighed. “But if no magic was involved in all this, I am the new metaphysical consultant of the Yard. And you better figure out how it was done Mathey.”

Ned sighed. “I assumed as much.”

Julian had now finished his examination of the lock and seemed now also satisfied that there had been no non-magical tampering. He joined Net and the inspector again. “Until we figure out how, what about who? Lewis’ son obviously has a motive but whoever inherits all this has one as well.” He looked questioningly at Hatton who replied: “There is a son. But according to the butler, Hyde threw him out about three years ago. A quarrel about a woman as far as he knew. He also said that Hyde didn’t discuss these matters with his staff but that he wouldn’t be surprised if he’d completely disinherited his son over this.”

“So who does inherit?”

“He doesn’t know about any other relatives, but we’ve sent someone to his solicitor to find out. By the time I’ve finished talking to the servants he should be back. Or do you need me for something else?”

Ned shook his head and then stared at the door again. He still hadn’t even a vague idea how it could have been done, and he hated feeling so clueless.

Hatton, who was already on his way downstairs turned back again. “Couldn’t the person just have blown a hole in the wall and repaired it again?”

Ned’s head snapped towards the inspector as he tried to think of a way to say _That’s an incredibly stupid suggestion_ without sounding to insulting. Julian came to his aid: “Blowing things up makes noise, even if you do it with magic. That couldn’t have been hidden.”

The inspector shrugged and left. Once he was definitely out of hearing range, Ned turned to Julian and asked without much hope: “Your friends and acquaintances won’t have any idea how that was done, either.”

Julian nodded. “Probably not. They generally want to open locked doors but care very little about closing them afterwards. And even less about making it appear as if the lock hadn’t been tampered with.” When he heard Ned’s sigh he added: “But I know someone with a vast - and obviously entirely theoretical - knowledge about opening locks with and without magic. If it can be done he’ll know it. I’ll pay him a visit. But I’ll better do that alone. He’s not fond of strangers.”

“But why? When his knowledge is so purely theoretical?” Ned grinned, “But go and visit your very private and solitary friend. I’ll keep staring at this door until Hatton’s finished with the servants and knows who inherits. Perhaps that will shed light on…something.”

“You mean in case Hyde left his fortune to a famous metaphysician who recently published a paper on how to get through locked doors without leaving a trace?” Julian grinned, ignoring Ned’s threatening glare.

“And then I’ll take Miss Frost out for the lunch I still owe her and run the whole thing by her. Perhaps she has an idea.”

Julian arched his eyebrows. “You think Breaking and Entering is taught at a lady’s college?”

“You think Miss Frost was content with learning about the things that were on the curriculum?”


	2. Chapter 2

Once they had ordered their food, Miss Frost looked at him expectantly. “Now what’s this mysterious case you wanted to talk to me about?”

Ned filled her in on the circumstances, without mentioning who the victim was. He’d had the faint hope that someone who wasn’t distracted by the name might have a clearer view of the matter but judging from Miss Frost’s face, she didn’t have a better idea.

“Who inherits? A son or a close relative would know his way around the house and possibly also ways to get in and out of rooms that are hidden to others.”

He explained what the police had now learned from Hyde’s solicitor - or rather his partner since the man himself was in Scotland dealing with a family emergency. “The son has been disinherited. All the money goes to a nephew in Canada.” Before Miss Frost could say anything he added: “Hatton is currently trying to find out if he really is in Canada at the moment.”

“Hm,” she said and let her eyes wander around the room as if the weirdly mismatching decoration of the room might hold an answer, “The son still could have done it. If he was sure that there was no chance that his father would change his mind, he might just have just wanted revenge.”

“He would…but along with the disinheritance his father kicked him out of the house and made clear that he never wished to see him or be contacted by him again.”

She arched her eyebrows. “And he never tried to do it anyway?”

“He never called at the house again. If there was a letter he never mentioned anything. And the butler brought up the possibility that he might have tried to catch his father somewhere in public in the hope of avoiding a scene. If that was the case, none of the servants would know about it.”

Miss Frost processed the information and murmured more to herself: “But if he wasn’t in the house that doesn’t matter anyway.” Then, straightening her back she asked: “What heinous deed warranted that treatment, anyway?”

Ned sighed. “The worst crime of all: not obeying his father.”

“That’s of course absolutely unacceptable. Not in this day and age.”

He elaborated further: “First he went against his father’s wishes by studying art. Apparently the old man still grudgingly accepted that but then young Richard let out that he had no intention of using his acquired knowledge to work in a high-class gallery but that he’d rather be an artist himself. And then he married a woman that his father considered absolutely unacceptable and that was the last straw for old Hyde.”

It took only a moment before he could see the surprise registering on her face. “Hyde? But not _the_ Hyde?”

“That’s exactly the one. I take it you followed the trial back then.”

She waited with her answer until their drinks had been placed on the table. “It was of course seen as an inappropriate subject for delicate young ladies but that didn’t stop us from…acquiring the papers that covered it and discussing what we thought of it.”

Ned decided not to ask why school-mistresses considered the topic of fraud unsuitable for ladies. Or remark on the suggestion that Miss Frost was delicate. Instead, he asked what they had thought about it.

“We all found it strange that Lewis would have sold his share of the company for so little…but then the contract was investigated and not forgery detected. So by all accounts, Hyde must have told the truth.” She sounded not very convinced by that argument and Ned waited for her to continue. “But it all seemed so wrong. Instead of leaving his son the share of a successful company that would secure his income for the rest of his life, he sells it to his partner for a ridiculously low price.” 

He opened his mouth to speak but Miss Frost was quicker. “I know Hyde claimed Lewis thought his son unfit for the position but then why not sell it for more? There was never any suggestion that the son was a gambler or in any way inclined to waste money. Just that he would not do well as a partner. He could have sold it for enough to have his son make a new start with something else.”

Ned’s thoughts had run along the same lines back then but the testimony of the metaphysicians that the signature was in Lewis’ hand had always stood in the way of any doubts on the subject. He wanted to bring up that topic but their food arrived. Seeing the pie reminded Ned of the fact that Hatton’s summons had cut his breakfast short and had hadn’t eaten since then. But before he had even touched it, the side of the pie cracked open and part of the filling leaked out. Ned stared at it incredulous but Miss Frost just grinned. “Seems their kitchen metaphysician is having a bad day.” Seeing his confused face, her grin deepened and she added: “You really were never taught any kitchen magic?”

“I can heat things up,” Ned protested, feeling suddenly very defensive. He also had the distinct impression that Miss Frost suppressed an eye-roll. 

“It’s a quite common spell to save ruined food. Provided the circumstances are right. It has to have had the right shape at one point. In the case of this pie, it means that it must have come out of the oven whole. But then it cracked for some reason. Perhaps they didn’t handle it carefully enough. And then they used _Remember Your Shape_.” She roughly sketched some signs with her finger to clarify the details.

Ned leaned back and considered the metaphysics behind it. “That’s…amazing. It doesn’t really fix it. Not in the same way a spell to repair something broken would.”

“Because anything that changes it permanently would be far too complicated since one had to consider which material exactly one wants to fix. But if something gets eaten anyway it doesn’t matter if the spell only holds it together for half an hour or so. Only sometimes…” she gestured at Ned’s plate. Not that there were many signs of the failed metaphysics left. He’d been too hungry to care about the optics of his food and already cleared half of his plate. Before he took another bite he paused. “So what does it work for? Only things that are broken?”

“Yes. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work with burnt food.” Her sigh suggested that she had tried using the spell that way. Possibly more than once. “It also doesn’t help with dough that didn’t rise properly or anything else that never looked like it was supposed to.”

Ned found this fascinating and wondered if the spell might have any use outside the kitchen but then he remembered that there were currently more pressing matters. “As much as I’d love to continue this discussion, I’m afraid we have to continue it another time. Did you have any ideas about how the contract could have been forged?”

She sighed. “You wouldn’t believe how much we cursed the fact that no paper got into the details about how the testing was done. Just that it was tested and found to be in Lewis’ hand. For a while, I was quite fond of the idea that the signature was genuine but the rest of the contract wasn’t.”

Ned considered that. “You mean the amount was changed afterwards?” When she nodded he continued: “But when you said for a while you mean you no longer believe it?”

“I know too little about forgery detection but it seems unlikely that they would only look at the signature.” Ned wasn’t an expert on the subject either but he was inclined to agree. It wasn’t exactly easy to change part of a text so that the change wasn’t immediately obvious to the naked eye but neither was it so hard that only a chosen few would be able to do it. Anyone who was confronted with an apparent forgery would have to think of that.

They continued the rest of their meal in silence, considering more possibilities. Having finished his last bite, Ned suggested: “An illusion?”

“You mean he thought he was selling it for more? Or signing something completely different?”

Ned was warming to the idea. “But the real contract was below the illusion. An illusion that is gone is much harder to spot than an actual change of writing.”

“But how would that have worked? He couldn’t know that Lewis would die and not protest. And the contract was dated the day before his death.”

Ned had been so preoccupied with considering possibilities of evading the forgery-detection that he had missed this rather vital detail.

She cleared the last bite off her plate before adding: “Is that important anyway? No matter if the contract was really forged, Lewis’ son was furious but that was eight years ago. And he wouldn’t gain anything from Hyde’s death.”

“You said about Hyde’s son that he might just have wanted revenge. So might Lewis’.”

Miss Frost acknowledged the possibility. “But that still leaves the problem that he also wouldn’t be welcome. And he is even more unlikely to know any secret ways into the study.”

Ned suppressed a frustrated sigh. They were running in circles. An eight-year-old scandal that might or might not have anything to do with the present murder. Two men who had reasons to hate the victim but no real gain from his death. One man who had a financial gain from his death but who was at the other end of the world. And of course, the rather important question of how whoever did it got in and out of the room. He hoped against hope that Julian’s investigation could shed some light on that topic.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for the long wait but a lot happened (I got a job but had to move for it so I spend a lot of time looking for flats and once I found one getting furniture for it). But things have calmed down a bit now so I hope from now on I'll be able to update more regularily.

In his search for answers, Ned had already worked his way through a number books and papers and was now going through _Memories of a Metaphysical Burglar_ but found himself disappointed again. While the anonymous author went into quite a lot of detail of the how of his thefts, those were mostly clear exaggerations. Good enough to fool someone who hadn’t done any metaphysics beyond the basics at school but for Ned, it was obvious that the spells he described had no way of working. The writer must have used far easier spells to open doors or just a lock-pick. If he'd ever committed a burglary at all. With a sigh, Ned put the book away. Before could think about which of the remaining books was the most likely to contain something useful, Julian appeared on his doorstep.

“I come bearing…well, some news.”

“You don’t sound like your friend with the hypothetical knowledge about burglaries had any helpful hypothetical knowledge about our problem.”

Julian hung up his coat and joined Ned on the sofa. “No, but I remembered something else. I think Richard Hyde and I have a friend in common.”

Ned arched his eyebrows but Julian quickly clarified: “Not that kind of friend. Thomas Oakby is a man who likes the sound of his own voice, the fine arts in general and more specifically the London art scene and having opinions on those. He combines all these things by often inviting others to the theatre or the opera, provided they’re willing to listen to his lectures on his current favourite subject.”

To Ned, the other kind of friend would have made more sense. “And what has Hyde to do with him?”

“I was sure I’d heard his name before but I didn’t make the connection until my way back here. I saw an advertisement for _Ernani_ [1], and when I remembered that Oakby had invited me to the performance next week I suddenly also remembered that I must have heard the name Richard Hyde from him.”

“And he’s also one of his friends?”

Julian shrugged, “or he might have opinions on his art. I admit I have no idea. But in any case, he’ll be able to tell us a lot about him.”

Ned’s eyebrows went up again. “Us?”

“We both want to solve the case, don’t we?”

“But he’s your friend,” Ned said slowly being not quite sure what Julian was getting at.

Before he got an answer he was treated to a performance of intense suffering by Julian. “When I say he likes the sound of his own voice, I’m not joking. I can’t just knock on his door, have a cup of tea, ask about Hyde and leave. I’ll have to listen to all his new discoveries and opinions…and to all his discoveries and opinions he already told me about last week when I got the opera ticket from him. And if I cut him off halfway through, he’ll take it personally and never invite me anywhere again. But, if we’re both there, you can insist that we need to leave once we have found out everything we know, and he won’t be annoyed with me and still get the occasional opera ticket I could never afford on my own.” He went over to Ned and gave him a pleading look. “Please. I will never get away from him otherwise. I’d be stuck there, listening to his ramblings forever.” He gave a mischievous grin, “You’d never see me again and you wouldn’t want that, would you.”

“Hmmm,” Ned said and leaned back, “I guess that would be inconvenient. I’ll have to go with you then.”

“Inconvenient?”, he grabbed Ned and pulled him up from the sofa - or rather Ned let himself be pulled - “Perhaps I should just go. See how inconvenient that would be for you.”

“Oh no. I didn’t mean that. Whatever should I do now to persuade you to stay?”

Julian’s grin widened. “I have an idea.”

“I’m all ears.”

* * *

Ned had assumed Julian had been exaggerating when he had talked about Oakby but if anything he hadn’t managed to fully convey how bad it was. They had barely arrived when he started talking. For some reason, he was convinced that Julian was terribly interested in the finer details of Georgian architecture (a glance at him told Ned that this wasn’t the case) and he gave an in-depth lecture on the subject and pulled out a book. “That was only released recently. You should read it.”

Julian took it and, to Ned’s surprise, Oakby was actually quiet while Julian studied the first few pages with an intense look. “Oh, that is fascinating. I’d love to borrow it. Only once you’re finished, of course.” Julian put the book on the table and Oakby opened his mouth, possibly to say that he already had finished it but Julian was quicker. “Oh, and by the way, you know Richard Hyde, don’t you?”

Ned would have thought that it would have been better to approach that topic more carefully but that was probably hard with someone like Oakby. And he didn’t seem in any way surprised by the question or find it suspicious. “Yes, yes. He exhibited a lot when he still had money. Not that he was very good.” After a short pause, he added: “Or successful. Not that everyone who is successful is talented”. His tone suggested very strong opinions on that subject and Ned feared that this was the lecture they were going to get but Julian managed to cut in and asked innocently: “When he had money?”

“Oh yes. He had a very generous allowance that opened a lot of doors. But then he married some penniless Russian girl his father disapproved of.”

Ned’s interest peaked. Julian’s explanation had made sense, but perhaps it had been a double-bluff after all. “Russian?”, he asked.

“Or was it French? I’m not sure. Foreign anyway…or perhaps the guy she ran of with was a foreigner? That was years ago now. But no…I think there was something about the French. Hyde had made a really atrocious copy of _Le Radeau de la Méduse_ because his wife had inspired him to look closer at the art of her homeland or something ridiculous. Though he claimed he was just inspired by Géricault’s painting. Can you believe that? Géricault was a master! Not some vain kid who fancied himself an artist because he knew how to hold a paintbrush. The arrogance! Isn’t it unbelievable?”

Ned nodded because that was obviously what Oakby expected. Not that he had any idea what the man was talking about. Julian leaned over to him and whispered something that sounded like: “The Raft of the Medusa. Very famous French romantic painting about cannibalism”, which he didn’t find particularly enlightening[2]. Neither was Oakby’s continued lecture on Géricault and his lamentation about him dying so young. 

Julian used a moment in which Oakby paused for breath and asked: “So when the wife was gone, did the relationship to his father improve again?”

“What? Oh, you mean Hyde? No. He was clearly hoping for it but the old man was having none of it. He said he’d thrown him out and he wasn’t going to go back on this. He wasn’t welcome anymore and he wouldn’t get a penny from him. Neither while he was alive nor while he was dead.”

Ned and Julian looked at each other. If that was true, Hyde really hadn’t any reason to kill his father.

Their host continued to be more interested in Géricault than Hyde and was now talking about his other works. Ned was getting tired. So he rather rudely interrupted Oakby’s excited lecture on a painting called Man Suffering from Delusions of Military Rank[3] and asked: “Do you by any chance know if Hyde is a good metaphysician?” which earned him a hiss and a slight blow to the rips from Julian.

However, Oakby answered without any sign of annoyance: “Of course he is. Didn’t I mention that? He graduated from Oxford with honours and he’s a metaphysical painter.”

Julian made the mistake of asking “A what?” so they were treated to an in-depth explanation of it. Ned tuned out because even though he didn’t really move in artistic circles he knew about this comparatively new fad. Metaphysical painters painted a picture in the ordinary way - or sometimes just poured colour on the canvas - and then moved it around by magic. Some left it at that, others used more magic so that it depended on the time, the day of the week or the weather if one saw the traditional painting or the metaphysical one. (The Commons of course strongly disapproved of this practice since metaphysics should only be used to do serious work and definitely not art). Ned didn’t really know many details about how metaphysical art worked but as Oxford Graduate Hyde had to be a very capable metaphysician. Capable enough to enter a locked room? In a house in which he wasn’t welcome?

By the time Ned focused on their host’s monologue again he was talking about a metaphysical painter who only painted magpies. He doubted they would be able to learn anything else that was relevant and Julian seemed to agree. Still, before they managed to make their excuses, they had to endure some more lectures about the magpies and their painter whose real name nobody knew and who only signed his works with ‘Night’. Even Julian rolled his eyes at that level of theatrics.

By silent agreement, they hurried away once the door closed behind them, to avoid any danger of Oakby coming after them because he remembered another lecture he wanted to hold. When they were finally far enough away Julian turned to him and asked: "So what do you think?"

Ned shrugged in frustration. "It just doesn't make sense. If he graduated from Oxford he could well manage to enter a locked room in some way I haven't figured out, yet. But if he was disinherited, what would be the point? He'd gain nothing from it."

"Revenge?" Julian suggested. "He must be furious at his father."

"Possible," Ned admitted.

"You don't look very convinced.

"When I think of fury I think of hitting someone over the head with a convenient heavy object during an argument and then running away...perhaps after placing the weapon in somebody else's room to implicate them. But to don't plan complex magic in a fit of rage."

"That argument would also exclude Lewis' son. He's gaining nothing from Hyde's death. Are you suggesting it was someone completely different? Someone who hasn't come up at all so far?"

Ned had to admit that this was even more unlikely. He sighed. "How about we continue all work-related discussions tomorrow and talk about something different now...but preferably neither about what the Georgians did to their windows, nor French cannibalism because I had enough of that today."

"I'm not going to argue with that."

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 An opera by Verdi. [return to text]
> 
>  
> 
> 2 _The Raft of Medusa_ depicts a raft with survivors of the wrecked _Méduse_ that had resorted to cannibalism before being rescued so Julian's explanation is perfectly sound. [return to text]
> 
>  
> 
> 3Yes that is a real paining by Géricault [return to text]


End file.
